Why Did Buddha Enter Nirvana ?

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Editor's Note: For many people, the Venerable Master's passing into stillness seemed too sudden and too soon. However, Great Good Knowing Advisors and Patriarchs appear in the world and leave the world for good reason. The Dharma Flower Sutra in particular, in Chapter Sixteen, "The Thus Come One's Life Span," discusses why the Buddha manifests entering Nirvana. In explaining that chapter in 1970, the Venerable Master drew parallels which are applicable to the present situation. Excerpts from that commentary appear below.

Shakyamuni Buddha said to all the Bodhisattvas Mahasattvas:

All gods, humans, and asuras in the world say that Shakyamuni Buddha now, having left the palace of the Pure Rice King and gone to a place about five miles from the city of Gaya to sit beneath the Bodhi tree to cultivate, became a Buddha after sitting there for forty-nine days.

Good men, I actually realized Buddhahood a long time ago. If you want to talk about how long it's been since I became a Buddha, there's no way to calculate the time. It was limitless, boundless hundreds of thousands of myriads of kotis of nayutas of eons ago. All I can do is try to draw an analogy to give you some idea. What is it analogous to? Suppose a person were to grind into fine motes of dust five hundred thousand myriads of kotis of nayutas of asamkhyeyas of three thousand great thousand world systems. Then, suppose he traveled to the east across five hundred thousand myriads of kotis of nayutas of asamkhyeyas of lands, and there he deposited one mote of dust. Suppose he continued in this way, traveling to the east, dropping one mote of dust every time he passed through that many lands, until all the motes of dust were gone. Would you say that was a great number of worlds? If you had the best mathematician and the most advanced technology, could you find the total?

I shall now explain this clearly for you. If all these numberless world systems, whether a dust mote were deposited in them or not--this includes all the worlds in which a dust particle was dropped, as well as the five hundred thousand myriads of nayutas of asamkhyeyas of lands where a mote of dust was not dropped--now, if all those many worlds were ground together and reduced to fine dust motes, and if each dust mote were counted as a great kalpa, the time that has passed since I became a Buddha would exceed even that by hundreds of thousands of myriads of kotis of nayutas of asamkhyeyas of eons. From that time on, I have always remained in the Saha world speaking the Dharma to teach and transform beings. I have been speaking Dharma to teach beings not only in this Saha world, but also in other worlds. In hundreds of thousands of myriads of kotis of asamkhyeyas of lands, I use all kinds of methods, not fearing suffering, not fearing difficulty, to teach and transform living beings. Meeting with living beings with all different kinds of faculties, I speak all different kinds of Dharmas for them.

Shakyamuni Buddha, uncountable great kalpas ago, had already become a Buddha. Therefore, the Bodhisattva disciples he has taken across are so many. They fill up empty space throughout the three thousand great thousand world systems. The Buddha continued:

In the midst of that long period of time, I said, "At the time of Dipankara Buddha, my name was Good Wisdom. When I met Dipankara Buddha, he bestowed a prediction upon me. He said, 'In the future, you will become a Buddha called Shakyamuni.'" I also said that at such-and-such a time, Dipankara Buddha would enter Nirvana. But to tell you the truth, I was just speaking expediently. I spoke of such events to accord with living beings' faculties. You shouldn't think it was actually the case.

Good men, if a living being comes to where I am, I contemplate his faculties and his causes and conditions. For the sake of those I should take across, no matter where they are, I will personally speak the Buddhadharma. What's more, I will say my name, although the names by which I refer to myself are different. In America I'm called by one name. In China I'm called by another. In Japan I have another name. In Germany, France, in all the places I appear, I go by different names, but the person is the same in all cases. And my age may be older or younger. I appear in a body and speak the Dharma. I tell my disciples, "I am about to enter Nirvana."

Actually the Buddha has no birth or demise. Within Eternal Stillness and Light, he is always speaking the Dharma. He employs various expedient devices, speaking the wonderful, inconceivable Dharma to make living beings happy. The Buddha observes the dispositions of living beings. Then he speaks the Dharma for them. When he sees living beings who like the Small Vehicle Dharmas, he teaches them the Small Vehicle Dharmas. If they like the Great Vehicle Dharmas, he teaches them the Great Vehicle Dharmas. People of scanty virtue will not be able to believe the Buddhadharma if you speak it for them. Those with heavy karmic obstacles won't believe it either. One must have deep and thick good roots to believe the Buddhadharma. Shakyamuni Buddha continues:

To people whose foundations are shallow and whose good roots are scant, I speak expediently, saying, "I left home when I was nineteen. After I left home, I gained the Unsurpassed, Proper and Equal Enlightenment." In truth, however, I became a Buddha a long time before that. The length of that time is as in the analogy I explained before. I'm using expedient methods to teach living beings, enabling all living beings to change from the deviant and return to the proper, to change evil into good, to turn from the small and go toward the great, bringing forth the Bodhi mind. It's for this reason that I speak of having left home when young, having realized the Way, having spoken the Dharma, and having taught and transformed living beings.

The Buddha spoke the Sutras, setting forth the Dharma-doors, in order to save living beings. Living beings have 84,000 varieties of afflictions. The Buddha taught 84,000 Dharma-doors to counteract those afflictions. The Buddha works like a physician curing illnesses. If someone has a headache, the doctor prescribes a certain kind of medicine. If someone has a sore leg, he prescribes another kind of medicine, and someone with the flu gets yet another prescription. In the same way, the Buddha "prescribes" Dharmas. To living beings plagued with much greed, he prescribes the contemplation of impurity. He encourages them not to be greedy, and he points out the impurity of desire. To living beings with big tempers, he recommends the contemplation of compassion. To stupid living beings, he prescribes the contemplation of causes and conditions. He uses these various methods to cure the illnesses of living beings. He may speak of his own deeds or of the deeds of another Buddha. He may manifest his own body, to personally guide living beings, or he may manifest a body of someone else as a guide. He may talk about his own deeds from this and former lives, or he may relate the causes and conditions of other Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Hearers, or Arhats, as an inspiration to living beings. But all that he says is true. There is nothing false in it whatsoever.

The Buddha's knowledge and views accord with truth and principle. On the Buddha's part, there is no birth or death, no retreating or advancing. There is no retreating into the triple realm and no transcending of the triple realm. On the part of the Buddha, there is no existence in the world or passage into extinction; there is no birth or death. Common people see the three realms as real. Whatever common people see, they take it as true. Even the false they consider to be true. Those of the Two Vehicles contemplate all dharmas as empty marks. They see the three realms as flowers in space, that is, as unreal, nonexistent, and empty. Common people take the three realms as real; those of the Two Vehicles take the three realms as unreal. To the Buddha there is nothing real or unreal, just as all things are contained within empty space but do not obstruct empty space. Empty space does not obstruct the myriad forms of existence, and the myriad forms of existence do not obstruct empty space. This is the same principle as True Emptiness not obstructing Wonderful Existence, and Wonderful Existence not obstructing True Emptiness. The Buddha is not like ordinary living beings who view the triple realm as something they must transcend. Having become one with empty space, there is neither oneness nor difference for the Buddha. The Buddha, unlike living beings, does not see the triple realm as the triple realm. To the Buddha, there is no birth, no death, and no triple realm. The Thus Come One is one who is truly awakened to all dharmas and who makes no mistake in what he sees.

Each living creature has its own nature. Each person has a human nature. Each person also has a Buddha nature, a Bodhisattva nature, a Hearer nature, and a Pratyekabuddha nature. And so a human being has the nature of a sage and a common nature--a wisdom nature and a stupid nature. Living beings also have various ideas, thoughts, and discriminations. Wishing to lead living beings to produce the roots of goodness, the Buddha employs diverse causes and conditions, analogies, and expressions to explain the various dharmas, carrying out the Buddha work without respite, day after day, month after month, year after year.

The Buddha's life span knows no birth or death. For limitless and boundless nayutas of asamkhyeyas of eons, he has been dwelling constantly in the Pure Land of Eternal Stillness and Light, neither produced nor extinguished. The Buddha says:

It has been such a very long time since I became a Buddha, yet the life span I realized when formerly practicing the Bodhisattva path is even longer than that. As I now proclaim that I am about to enter the stillness, I am not really passing into the stillness. I manifest entering the stillness only as an expedient to teach and transform living beings.

Why does the Buddha, although he does not become extinct, still announce his extinction? Why does he manifest production and extinction when for him there is actually no production or extinction?

If the Buddha were to stay in the world a long time, remaining long in the world and not entering Nirvana, those of scanty virtue who do not plant good roots would become even more lazy. Those with heavy karmic obstacles would not plant good roots. They would grow dependent on the Buddha, thinking, "The Buddha's here. I don't need to plant good roots right now. I'll get to it later." They would wait around. That is why the Buddha manifests as entering the stillness. Once he has entered Nirvana and people see that they have nothing to rely on, they will get busy and plant some good roots. This is a very obvious principle.

When I was in Manchuria, I had a lot of disciples. I taught them how to cultivate, yet they didn't cultivate. Some said they wanted to take their time. Others said, "I don't have time right now." After I left Manchuria, I started to get letters that said, "So-and-so, your disciple in Manchuria, didn't cultivate before, but now he is cultivating because his teacher isn't here. He's working very hard now."

When I was in Hong Kong, my disciples were pretty relaxed about their cultivation. After I left, they realized how hard it is without a teacher, and they all wrote letters to me asking me to come back. I didn't pay any attention to them, however. People are like that. If you see something every day, you don't think it's important. When it's taken away from you, you realize how important it is. So the Buddha doesn't remain in the world for a long, long time, because if he did, people of scanty virtue would fail to plant good roots. They would just choose to wait instead. But those who do not plant good roots or make offerings to the Triple Jewel remain poor and lowly, and they covet the five desires--wealth, form, fame, food and sleep.

The affairs of the world are just that strange. The "have-nots" are greedy, and those who have everything can't put it down. Shakyamuni Buddha, as a crown prince, had a surfeit of all the five desires, but he put them all down. People who haven't had their fill of the five desires are greedy for them. Whether a person "has" or "has not" is a matter of karmic retribution. If you don't have good roots and do no good deeds, you won't have a good reward. How can you get a good reward? Plant good roots and do good deeds, then you will reap a good fruit and gain a good reward. The poorer people are, the greedier they are. People who have a little money aren't as greedy.

People who are wealthy and are still greedy might as well be poor. It's said, "Good people don't hate others; hateful people are not good. Noble people don't get angry; those who get angry are not noble." Sometimes sages get angry, but not really. It's just something they manifest according to certain circumstances. People who get angry are stupid. Rich people don't grab for bargains. People who like bargains are poor people. Poor people are always looking for a deal, hoping to benefit themselves.

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